Jesus takes the frayed strands our lives and weaves a tapestry of grace.  Jesus is not surprised at the messy places life finds us and he’ll never turn his back on us.  No. Matter. What. 

The message this week takes us to one of those hidden messes.  In the story of the man with two sons, we see the mess of the younger son – the one who went off and rebelled against his dad.  Sunday we’ll look at the mess of the older son.  He was just as lost, maybe even worse.  He stayed home, he did everything right, he never disobeyed.  And he was messed up.  Watch what happens when the veil is pulled back.

This week we’ll see the same story of redemption play out, only through the lens of an insider – someone who had power and was in authority, but whose life was just as messy as anyone else’s. On Sunday we’ll look at Zacchaeus. And hopefully we can learn a few lessons from Zacchaeus not just about how we should live, but also about who our God is and how He operates among our mess.

This week we begin our summer series entitled MESSY GRACE.  It is a recognition of the beautiful reality that God is at work in the midst of our messiness.

Over the past number of years I have had the joy of watching several chalk artists do their amazing work.  They begin with a blank black canvas and cast broad strokes of chalk onto this canvas in no seeming order.  Layers upon layers of chalk are added to this work until a beautiful picture begins to emerge and you are left amazed.  But this is not all.  The chalk artists’ then turn on a “black light” to reveal that beneath the surface is another scene of even greater beauty and wonder.  It always takes my breath away.